ar the zenith of its luxuriance. The other excursion to
Udolpho with John Mayrant was not so likely to fall through. Udolpho
was a sort of hunting lodge or country club near Tern Creek and an old
colonial church, so old that it bore the royal arms upon a shield
still preserved as a sign of its colonial origin. A note from Mayrant,
received at breakfast, informed me that the rain would take all
pleasure from such an excursion, and that he should seize the earliest
opportunity the weather might afford to hold me to my promise. The wet
gale, even as I sat writing, was beating down some of the full-blown
flowers in the garden next Mrs. Trevise's house, and as the morning wore
on I watched the paths grow more strewn with broken twigs and leaves.

I filled my correspondence with accounts of Daddy Ben and his grandson,
the carpenter, doubtless from some pride in my part in that, but also
because it had become, through thinking it over, even more interesting
to-day than it had been at the moment of its occurrence; and in replying
to a sort of postscript of Aunt Carola's in which she hurriedly wrote
that she had forgotten to say she had heard the La Heu family in South
Carolina was related to the Bombos, and should be obliged to me if I
would make inquiries about this, I told her that it would be easy,
and then described to her the Teuton, plying his "antiquity" trade
externally while internally cherishing his collected skulls and nursing
his scientific rage. All my letters were the more abundant concerning
these adventures of mine from my having kept entirely silent upon them
at Mrs. Trevise's tea-table. I dreaded Juno when let loose upon the
negro question; and the fact that I was beginning to understand her
feelings did not at all make me wish to be deafened by them. Neither
Juno, therefore, nor any of them learned a word from me about the
kettle-supporter incident. What I did take pains to inform the assembled
company was my gratification that the report of Mr. Mayrant's engagement
being broken was unfounded; and this caused Juno to observe that in
that case Miss Rieppe must have the most imperative reasons for uniting
herself to such a young man.

Unintimidated by the rain, this formidable creature had taken herself
off to her nephew's bedside almost immediately after breakfast; and
later in the day I, too, risked a drenching for the sake of ordering the
packing-box that I needed. When I returned, it was close on tea-time;